On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 6:44 PM, Matt Mahoney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- William Pearson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Consider also the sentence, "There are words such as verbs, that are > > doing words, you need to put a pronoun or noun before the verb". > > > > People are given this sort of information when learning languages, it > > seems to help them. How and why does it help them? > > Actually, no. Children learn to form grammatically correct sentences without > ever knowing the difference between a noun and a verb. >
Adult can do tricks not accessible to a child, increasing efficiency of language learning, and this process can make use of completely different information. Explicit learning of difference between categories is faster than unsupervised learning of such distinction. Syntax can be regarded as such caricature of natural language that helps in forming new categories relevant for it. Sometimes, categories required for obtaining expertise in certain domain may never form without supervised learning (it's hard to invent something, but easy to learn). For example[*], Japanese speakers can't distinguish 'R' and 'L' sounds, as in Japanese these are interchangeable and pronounced closer to each other. The best way to teach the distinction is by exaggerating both sounds, so that categories can be formed, which then allows differentiation between normal sounds. * JL Mcclelland, 2006. How Far Can You Go with Hebbian Learning, and When Does it Lead you Astray? -- Vladimir Nesov [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: http://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: http://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=101455710-f059c4 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
